Improving the effectiveness of information

To cope with the rising customer expectations of the current ‘click and buy’ generation, organizations need to offer their customers a highly personalized, context-driven experience. The required processing speed and complexity - combining data from various sources and devices - cannot be delivered by a human workforce alone anymore. Could Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bring organizations the level of contextual intelligence that is required to make the first step towards intelligent automation and fully customer centered products and services? Let’s explore.

Rotating wheels are destiny, in flame the city lies. Machines call out for followers far out into the night. The calls of the machines drowning in the steam. (P-Machinery - Propaganda) The vision that the band Propaganda created in the 80's, with humans operated as puppets, comes close to the fear a lot of people still have when we are talking about robotics and the automation of processes. Despite this fear, robots and robotics are hot and the technology is advancing so fast that it is hard to keep track. With this blog I will give a brief introduction to two trends that I consider as leading in current process automation: 1. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 2. Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) Robotic Process Automation (RPA) According to the Institute for Robotic Process Automation (IRPA) "Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the application of technology that allows employees in a company to configure computer software or a “robot” to capture and interpre

I have an annual travel insurance. It is not that I travel a lot, but it gives me the flexibility to come and go whenever I want. It saves me the trouble of ordering a new travel insurance for every vacation and it guarantees me that I am always insured. You could say that it provides me with the suggestion of freedom to travel. But isn’t it strange that I need to take an annual insurance, just to avoid the hassle of ordering a new insurance every time I want to travel? And what about my coverage? Should I choose worldwide coverage just in case I want to travel outside of Europe? And why do I have to pay for the days that I am not traveling? I demand a personalized product that automatically adjusts itself too. And I only want to pay for what I use We are the ‘click and buy’ generation and these days, everything is getting personalized. In a series of articles on contextual intelligence and robotics, I want to give you insight in the state of the technology and it's appli

In the previous episodes of this blog series we have looked at the lessons I have learned on Product Branding during my days as a product marketer: Lesson 1: Define your goal Lesson 2: Stay close to the facts Lesson 3: Be clear about your motives Lesson 4: Don’t wait until tomorrow In this final episode of this series (for now), we are going to look at lesson 5: Keep your brand intact. This is based on the lessons I have learned on what works and what doesn’t work when your brand value is impacted by external factors like bad publicity. Lesson 5: Keep your brand intact Imagine yourself being the product marketer of  company that delivers business software. You have established a strong brand for your company and its products and you are planning to continue working on this brand. But then something happens that immediately impacts the value of your brand: one of your clients has published a rather negative article about your product. The article gets a lot of attention b

In the previous entries in this series, we have talked about setting a goal , the balance between facts and future and about expressing your motives . In this post we will look into the aspect of timing. Lesson 4: Don’t wait for tomorrow When you work as a product marketer for an innovative product manufacturer, one of the worst things that can happen is that one of your competitors positions its product exactly in the spot where you wanted your product to be. When it comes to branding you don’t want to brand your product as an alternative for your competitor’s product, which means you have to think of a whole new messaging structure. You want to be the original. In my work as a product marketer for a software supplier, I have always managed to avoid such a situation. Two aspects were important in this approach: our efforts were strongly goal-driven and we moved fast. Important in this approach was to keep an eye on both our competitors and our clients. On the competitor sid

In the previous entries in this series on personal branding, we have looked at the similarities between product branding and personal branding, learned the benefits of a goal-driven approach and defined the optimal balance between using facts and future developments in our personal brand. Lesson 3: Be clear about your motives As a product marketer I have worked for a company that used strong statements to set itself and its product apart from other software companies and its solutions. These included statements that could be seen as ambitious or even arrogant. The goal was obviously to show the world how innovative and ground-breaking our product was, but why would we take the risk to go as far as calling ourselves – our product – a revolution in IT? Think of lesson 2: the further you get away from the facts, the harder it is to live up to the expectations. On top of all this, people were wondering what the company’s motives were for this distinct type of branding. So the